Easy to Access Digital Whiteboards with Collaborative Options
Do you teach elementary students and are looking for easy to access digital whiteboards that can be used on Chromebooks/computers and no sign in is required? Well look no further! This post contains a few of my favorites that even have the option for students to collaborate with one another. These are even great to use when introducing students how to work with others in a digital environment. You can read THIS post about an easy intro activity that will help guide, teach and model effective digital collaboration using a web whiteboard.
How Can Digital Whiteboards Be Used in the Elementary Classroom?
- replace individual whiteboards and markers
- sketch/plan/brainstorm
- work out math problems
- draw & label diagrams
- the possibilities are endless!
Did you know that you can use stylus pens on computer trackpads? You can read all about it in THIS post which also contains a link to affordable stylus pens for the elementary classroom.
Witeboard
I love Witeboard (yes, that is how you spell it) for its simple layout and easy to use tools. This is a great one to use with primary students. Users can go straight to the website and a blank canvas will launch for them to immediately start working. If they would like to share their work with a peer, they simply click the share button in the upper right hand corner and the link is automatically copied to their clipboard for them to share. *Towards the end of this post I will share how you can make this collaborative process easier while also keeping tabs on student work*.
Web Whiteboard
Web Whiteboard is another easy to use digital whiteboard with a collaborative option. Students go to the site, click Create a free whiteboard and the canvas pops up. The boards do expire after 21 days with the free version. The url is automatically created when the board appears so students would just need to copy it from the address bar to share with others. Students do have the option to download their board as an image file.
Aww App
Aww App also has a free version which has lots of neat options including the ability to upload images, PDFs, and PowerPoints. Students can export their boards as images or PDFs! They can invite others to their board by clicking Invite and grabbing the url or copying the url in the address bar.
Whiteboard Fox
Whiteboard Fox is a slick website that has lots of options besides drawing and adding text. The background is made up of grid squares to help students spatially. There are other options such as the ability to add images, take a snapshot of your canvas, replay what you drew and more!
Creating and Giving Access to Collaborative Boards
The really nice feature of the web whiteboards mentioned above is that they can be shared with others and turn into a collaborative experience. Whoever creates the whiteboard just shares the url with their team member(s). This may sound easy but many primary students would struggle with this step. Therefore, assignments like these would require the teacher to create multiple boards for group work. What I like to do is prepare the boards ahead of time by creating each one and pasting the url into a chart in a Google Doc that labels each board with student names or group names. This way everything is housed in one location and I can even jump on their boards to check on their progress. All I do is share the Google Doc link the with class (via Google Classroom, Seesaw, LMS, etc.). Here is an example:
